Whirlwind

Wow. There has been so much going on recently that of course I just opted to NOT blog anything because I'm such an all-or-nothing girl. Even so, I wasn't joking when I said I wanted to continue updating this McMahan family blog at least every now and then. I really do. So here are a few updates in quick bullet form, so that I can get back to editing and cleaning before I try to go to bed at a relatively early hour (i.e., not 1 a.m.).

• Just had the best birthday celebration ever. James and I had toyed with the idea of having my best friends over for a few hours of crafting before a small family dinner for my birthday. I didn't want anything huge but I LOVED the idea of my girls helping me with my wedding scrapbook (ongoing project ... we were married in 2005 but I'm determined to have it finished THIS YEAR). I was GIDDY with excitement when my talented girls started pounding out beautiful pages. And my mom? She's not a paper crafter but she's a sewer so she worked on squares for Emma's quilt. Ahhhh, it was one of the most fun days EVER. We got 23 new pages done, my girls didn't kill me for being so bossy over their layouts, and I got gift cards for JoAnn, Starbucks and Macy's, plus two sets of OXO organizing containers for my pantry. Woo-hoo for crafting, organizing, quilting, food and girl-talk!
• Speaking of talking, Kasey is talking up a storm. He will attempt to repeat any word I ask him to say. He loves saying "Mama" because I give him a huge, exaggerated response to show him how happy I am when he says it. Only thing is that "Mama" and "Emma" sound very similar to a 1-year-old, and therefore the way he says both names is pretty much the same too. Without prompting, he now says thank you after we hand him pretty much anything (cutest thing EVER), always signs please with reckless abandon, and says "nigh-nigh" in the cutest, sighing, sing-song voice. The kid has my heart in his little chubby hands.
• Emma is so smart. She still loves books and is trying to read now. She asks us all the time what certain words say. I have a little guilt that I haven't worked with her more on this because I have NO DOUBT that she could full-on read at three years old if I'd been teaching her more. She has such an interest and a desire to read on her own. She's recently been into playing dress-up and played with Barbies for the first time with our neighbor. She's starting ballet in July and you can only imagine how excited I am. My mom, Emma and I are going to one of the British Dancing Academy (where I studied for nearly 20 years) shows this weekend and I CANNOT WAIT. I am going to cry when I hear Miss Sandi's voice read the narrative of the story before each act. I know it. I have SO MANY wonderful memories of that place and I cannot believe my daughter is soon going to be a student there! She's a dancer -- I just know it. I won't push her, but she already loves to show people her first position and plie, before she's even been officially taught. And one of her favorite things is turning up the music in the family room and dancing around. Anyway, gotta stop the dance talk or else this whole blog post will be about ballet. :)
  
• James and I have joined a small group with our church and so far are loving it. It's Matt & Sara's (our dear, long-time Guilfoyle friends) small group and we're doing a study called Sexy Christians (heck yeah!). We went to a Sexy Christians conference over the weekend a month or so back. It was very enlightening, inspiring and thought-provoking. James and I have a renewed commitment to make each other our second-highest priority in our lives -- second only to God. This means that we are taking much more time to focus on each other, that we're cutting some things out of our lives and actively planning more downtime just with our little 4.5-person family. This is probably not a bullet-point subject; it deserves an entire blog post. For now, I'll say that the change in our home is sometimes nearly tangible. We credit God for ALL of this change and we are so grateful that we finally opened our eyes and ears wide enough to hear what He has planned for us as a couple.
  
• Our garden is doing pretty well so far, despite the cold, cold weather we're still having. Our strawberry plants (we have six, I think) are going crazy. Our zucchini plants (one was a starter, three we grew ourselves from seed) are huge. We have five or six pea plants, two cucumber plants (those are struggling), three bell pepper plants (those are not doing poorly, but not doing well either), lots of corn, several tomato plants (both cherry tomatoes and huge beefsteak tomatoes), a ton of Walla Walla sweet onions, carrots, lettuce, potatoes, broccoli, jalapenos and more. We have basil (which REALLY makes me sad because it's STRUGGLING and I want so badly to have a thriving basil garden this year), lavender, lemon thyme, lime thyme, cilantro and chives. I bought a bag of dahlia bulbs at Costco this spring and planted around 14-15 bulbs in early May. They're shooting out of the soil right now (nine in the ground, 4-5 in a big pot) and I can't WAIT till they start to flower.
  
• James and his dad finished the fence and our backyard is officially all fenced in! We still have scary pitbulls in the backyard that bumps up to our backyard, but all I can do is pray for protection and that they cannot climb the fence over into our yard. I admit I have daily fear over those dogs and I wish the owners would be more responsible with them ... but we've done all we can do to protect ourselves so far. On a happier subject, what is so cool to me is that we have a gate connecting our yard with our next-door neighbor's yard (not the neighbors with the dogs) because we love them so much. Both families agreed that we enjoyed the quick access we had to each other when we didn't have fences in between us and we didn't want that to go away. I'm grateful every day for the awesome family God connected us with in our neighbors, the Z family. We love them -- all eight of them (six kids!).
  
• We're in the middle of making pretty big changes to our business, Amanda Kay Photography. We are working on a website (we'll still have our blog), new session packages, printing options, marketing materials, new pricing structures ... and most importantly, new schedules and processes for me. I have not been handling all of my duties well over the past few months. Once again, in an attempt to help as many people as I could, I over-scheduled severely. With a 3-year-old who needs time and attention and a 1-year-old who needs to be watched and protected, I just don't have the time I used to have to edit and do the administrative work I need to do to keep up. We're cutting my shooting schedule back severely and I'll be taking less clients each month. This is all in an effort to be able to provide better service to our amazing clients. AKP has been and continues to be such a blessing in so many ways, but now it's time for me to take hold of the reins and run the business the way I want to, rather than letting the business run me. I am a wife and a mom first, and my family deserves the best of me ... not whatever is leftover after I've stayed up all night trying to catch up on all my editing and processing. So ... keep an eye out for an announcement about AKP's new web presence later this summer/fall. We'll be rolling out new pricing structures, printing information, new logos, and (hopefully) even some educational information for clients.
  
• Drumroll please ... James is now the executive director at his organization! Without going into too much detail on this, I'll just say that this is something we've been waiting for for nearly three years. James worked hard to prove himself not just worthy but PERFECT for this leadership role and he waited patiently and respectfully over the years to have the opportunity to compete for it. I have been so proud of his patience, resilience and diligence in what he's dealt with over the years in his work life. He's been disrespected and his ideas, ideals, character and work ethic have been challenged (in the good sense but also unfortunately, even more so in the negative sense). He's accomplished so much since he's been with this group and continues to deliver more than anyone expects. I do not understand how my husband seems to pass/kill certain bills in the Legislature on his first try that others spend years and years trying to pass and never have any success. He is amazing and so good at his job! I'm very excited to see where he goes from here. I know I am so blessed to have a husband who not only supports and encourages my ability to stay home with our kids AND run a business, but does EVERYTHING he can to ensure we are always in the best financial position we can be in, no matter how little we have to work with. :) We've definitely struggled over most of the last three years but God has taken care of us in every way.
  

Well ... for a quick update, I went into a lot of detail on a few big things. There's still so much more I could share. There are so many more milestones I could note, pictures I could post. This is it for now though. I've already passed my 20-minute limit on typing this post. Gotta get down to business and finish a client CD!